Augusto

Happy Fiestas Patrias!

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Military Paraders, originally uploaded by katherinebruder.

Happy Independence Day in Peru! Today, the country celebrates 189 years of independence from Spain.

The last few years, I have spent the 4th of July at the Casa Girasoles home in Ica with the group from my home church, First Presbyterian. Augusto, the house father in Ica, is very patriotic towards his country Peru, and every year tells me he feels honored to spend our Independence Day with us (the Dearborn group) in his home. In the three years I have known Augusto, never have I been able to share in his Independence Day, fiestas patrias, at the home in Ica. In 2008, I was in Cusco and last year, I was still working at the Girasoles abandoned boys home in Puerto Alegria.

This year, after leaving the jungle and returning to Lima, I headed south to the desert – partly to help adjust from the hot and humid jungle weather before going to the cold mountains, but mostly to see friends in Girasoles Ica. I arrived to Ica on Tuesday night, the day before the national holiday festivities began.

This morning at breakfast, I asked Augusto if anything special would be happening for the holiday and he mentioned the parade through the city center. We didn’t think much of it and were not planning on going, but we needed to run some errands and ended up walking along the parade, watching the local schools, army, police officers and every form of civil servant march through the streets of Ica. While this was not my first parade in Peru, it was definitely the most organized.

After the parade, we returned to Girasoles and found the boys humming and singing the chorus of the Peruvian national anthem (Somos libres seámoslo siempre, seámoslo siempre!”) and wearing their escarpelas in honor of the day.

Happy fiestas patrias.

Pampachay

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PampachaySome good news from the Casa Girasoles home in Ica:

In May a group of volunteers from Telefonica, the Peruvian Telephone Company, asked Girasoles Ica to submit a socially relevant project to their first ever “Contest of Original Social Projects”.

Interestingly, Augusto, house parent to the boys already had an idea in mind; having the boys use recycled materials as instruments. The concept was eagerly accepted and once the telephone company signed on to help fund the project, Augusto and the boys began “band practice”. Old plastic buckets, tins, metal pipes, bottles, cardboard and wooden boxes would do just fine!

All 40 boys participated in the project led by Augusto – even down to the youngest, Sanchez, who is only 5 years old. The group successfully won the Ica area contest and went on to place among the top nine contestants nationwide, which qualified them for further funding and grants.

Thanks to the boys success and unprecedented corporate support, Girasoles Ica will now have a music teacher who will help them record “Pampachay” (Quechua for “overcoming difficulty”) a full length CD of their creative music! A first lot of 1000 CDs will be sold at S/10 each and the proceeds will be used to improve the boys’ educational experience in Ica.

Here you can see the cover to the debut CD and a group photo of Girasoles Ica with a work team from Dearborn, Michigan.

Dearborn & Girasoles Ica

(Text courtesy of the Vine Trust)

Si Tuvieras Fe

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One of my favorite songs that the Girasoles boys sing is called Si Tuvieras Fe. It says:

Si tuvieras fe como un grano de mostaza, eso lo dice el Señor.
Tu le dirias a las montañas, muevense, muevense.
Y las montañas se moverán, se moverán, se moverán.

(If you have faith the size of the mustard seed, says the Lord, tell the mountains to move and they will move.)

Last night, I was talking with Augusto and Nancy, who are the house parents at the Casa Girasoles Ica home. We were talking about what has been going on at the house and in our lives during the past 9 months since I stayed with them in September. They told me how the house has grown from 22 boys last year to now being full at 43, about how they took all the boys to the movie theater in December, and the new, positive relationships they have formed with the Ica courts and police. I told them about my unsuccessful attempts at looking for a job, the calendar I created with my photographs, and how I had an interview for an internship within the White House Photo Office for the fall when I return.

In the middle of the conversation and without notice, Nancy got up and returned to their house. She returned a few minutes later with a little green box that had 6 little mustard seeds inside it. She explained to me that their church gave these boxes to all of the families as a way to remind them that they only needed to have faith the size of a mustard seed for God to do things in their life.

Nancy told me to put the little box on my dresser back home so that every time I look at it, I will be reminded that there are 40 Girasoles, Augusto, Nancy and their children in Ica praying for me.

Si tuvieras fe.

To listen to the song by Salvador, click on the link:  Montaña (Si Tuvieras Fe)